Amotekun Lacks Capacity To Tackle Banditry — El-Rufai

Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai warned yesterday that arming state security outfits was not enough to end insecurity in the country.

To El-Rufai, doing so would amount to a simplistic approach to combatting “sophisticated” non-state actors that sometimes ”outgun the military.”

The governor spoke shortly before his Benue State counterpart, Samuel Ortom, issued a one-month ultimatum to the Federal Government to grant the state’s Community Volunteer Guards a license to bear AK-47s.

Ortom, who also said that the federal and state governments were currently working to achieve state policing, however, explained that Benue people would have the final say if the Federal Government failed to grant the request for an arms licence.

Akeredolu had on September 22 notified the Federal Government of his intention to procure arms for operatives of Amotekun. He had argued that it was not only legal but it was his duty as a governor to protect Ondo residents from marauders.

But featuring on Channel’s Sunrise Daily, El-Rufai, said: ”People are speaking simplistically when they say ‘I want to get an AK-47 for my Amotekun. You don’t know what you’re dealing with.

“Local security networks can only provide local intelligence. They do not have the firearms to face these guys [bandits].

”These guys sometimes even rout the military. They are very well-armed. They are getting arms that are sophisticated. Sometimes, they outgun the military. Those vigilantes are not up to scratch.”

The governor, who is known to have openly canvassed carpet bombing of terrorists and bandits’ camps as a way to contain non-state actors, said there have been positive changes in the security of his state in the past six weeks.

He said that the latest tactics, including “bombing’’ of bandits’ hideouts, deployed by the military were reducing the level of attacks in the state.

El-Rufai said: “I’m happy to say in the last six weeks, there has been a change because the military has now deployed special forces here. And they have taken the bandits out. The air force is bombing them. All the things that we asked for two to three years ago are now happening.

“If that had been done three years ago, we would have been in a completely different environment. Because three years ago, they were much fewer in numbers, we knew their camps, we knew everything about them.”

In Makurdi, the Benue State capital, Ortom said he applied for licence for the state’s security outfit to bear arms three months ago.

He revealed this during the passing out of batch B of the Volunteer Guards. He told the guards that their primary role was to complement efforts by the Nigeria Police Force and other security agencies in curbing the surging crimes and killings in the state.